Saturday 13 January 2018

If Carlin were Alive

At some point in 1972, comedian George Carlin uttered the phrase which has stood around for almost forty years: "There are seven words you can never say on television.  The words are: s**t, p**s, f**k, c**t, co**ksu**er, motherf***er, and t*ts."

At some point around 1978, I bought the George Carlin record at the base BX, and I sat and heard the entire dialog.  I came to agree with George.  These were phrases which would never be uttered.

Well....up until this week with "s**t-hole supposedly uttered by Trump (maybe he said, maybe he didn't).  But then you had to sit and listen to CNN.  In a one-hour period, the term sh**hole was uttered at least fifteen times. 

Carlin, if he were alive today....would rolling around and laughing his ass off at the news media and the ability to quickly adapt to profane terms as being legit.  Trump?  I think he's got some masterplan existing now on how to insert c**t, f**k and t*ts into the next mid-week meeting and see how quickly the news media would bend any moral standing to utter the phrases.

It'll be some topic related to c**t-countries, or f**king poor behavior by some Asian dictator. 

The world is forever changed now. 

Alabama, Letterman, and Niceness

I follow Alabama news to some degree and noted this week that as part of some trendy new show for Netflix....David Letterman (former night-time TV show host) ended up coming down to Alabama for a tour of the Selma area by Georgia Congressman John Lewis.

The constructed vehicle for this episode is semi-serious, so Letterman can't joke around much.  But I noted in the comments section that he was awful surprised at how nice and gracious folks were to him.  He wasn't expecting that.  Course, if he'd asked the folks if they recognized him....beard and all....I suspect more than fifty-percent would have said no...that they just are nice to people in general.

So this brings up this odd topic of Alabama behavior that few ever admit to or recognize as some trait.

Some folks will say that it's all that church-stuff that reinforces public niceness.  Some would suggest it's something left over from the depression era and the 1930s.  Some would suggest that it's the fact that Alabama folks missed out on radical periods and that being civil/respectful is the result of that.

The truth is that most folks around the state can be awful sympathetic, good-natured, and diplomatic.  It's true, you might drive up and lay out some poor woeful story over your wife leaving you and your cousin might be real diplomatic and attentive in hearing the ninety-minute story, then offer you several shots of whiskey and urge you to attend church....mostly because that's where all the single women hang out and you can rebound.  We call that attitude of the cousin....true diplomacy.

Maybe you got some catastrophic story of the car transmission failing for the second time in twelve months.  As a neighbor, I'd try my best to soften the pain by offering a beer, and then suggesting that a Honda product would be a good replacement for the Ford.

When folks get into a sad situation, we Alabamians often tend to look on the bright side and suggest prayer and a shot of something.

My worry here with Letterman visiting and having this idea of folks being so nice....is that it'll all get back to those Hollywood and New York folks, and then suddenly they all want to show up and get some niceness and kindness dished out to them in abundance.  Some idiot will start up a Alabama-rehab program (probably will be called the Bentley-program) for crazy Hollywood folks, and then the whole state attitude will come crashing down.

So my final word and advice....mostly for Alabama folks....always be prepared as you walk into a Piggly Wiggly or a Catfish Cabin restaurant, because Letterman might be standing there, and you need to quickly utter the phrase..."How you doing", and don't let on that you don't recognize the guy.

Trump's Suggestion of Norwegians

During this meeting where Trump said (or perhaps never said) the word 's**thole' and noted the issues with people from such countries....he then turned to suggest the US ought to have more people from Norway.

I sat and pondered over this.  While I've never been to Norway (it's on my list), I've seen enough travel documentary pieces and read enough on the Norwegians to have some views.  This idea of bringing more Norwegians into the US has a negative angle to it. 

1.  Over the past decade, with success and stress....Norway has slowly become a major drug empire.  It's generally rated as the number two place in Europe for drug-related deaths.  So the odds are, if you had a hundred Norwegians entering the US....you'd probably have to drug-test them and discover that 10-percent are dopers.

2.  Drinking to excess.  Well, yeah....most all folks in the Nordic area (to include those Swedes and Danes as well)....drink excessively.  The state taxes the heck out of hard booze and probably helps to prevent some major issues, but you just cross the line with beer instead.  You might not want to let some Norwegians into the US who'd just get into serious trouble because of their drunken status.

3.  Prejudice values.  Folks in Norway tend to brag about their ability to accept social changes (gays, blacks, weird religions, etc).  The problem with this is that it's basically centered around Oslo, Bergen, and maybe four other major cities in the country of five million.  Once you cross the urban line of those major areas.....you find yourself in small communities where they aren't quiet as accepting as their city-brothers.  Yeah, you might find yourself a fair number of bigots, racists, and extremist characters.  You probably wouldn't want members of this crowd in the US.

4.  Generally, if you watch the travel documentary pieces....just about anything that requires extreme manual labor or is classified as 'nasty-work'....is not performed by a Norwegian.  If you have a construction site.....a fair number of the workers will be Poles.  If you have some clean-up crew for a train, it'll be foreigners who've come into Norway, and been hired.  Norwegians don't do sh**work or things that are beneath their status in life.

5.  Generally, if you bring up suppression of people around the world....Norway gets on the list because of the treatment of native people to the north of the country....the Sami folks. In a way, up until the late 1970s....they were pretty harsh on this group of Norwegians. 

6.  Finally, you come to this issue of personal debt.  Norway is a pretty successful country and to provide all the services that you see....they tax the heck out of people.  There's the twenty-five percent sales tax....right off the bat, that you notice.  The hefty income tax takes a chunk of money.  For smokes and booze....more taxes.  So the government gives you a lot of free stuff, but if you were a working-class guy, there's a limited lifestyle ahead of you.  All of this leads to folks borrowing money to enjoy a few extras in life, and it becomes a major habit, which leads onto significant debt facing most Norwegians. 

I'm not saying most Norwegians are trouble-makers...far from it.  But if you had a hundred Norwegians at the door and knocking to come in, you might want to evaluate folks and determine that twenty-percent probably should be denied.  It might even go past the twenty-percent point.